Forgive me for waiting so long to post something new. And yes, it IS another poem. Really. I sincerely apologize.

But anyway, this scene has been playing in my mind a lot lately. The scene of a girl dancing on water, in perfect joy despite her circumstances. I sort of want to be like that. I think everyone does. We all want to be happy amid crisis. And so, my poem.

I told you in my last post that my next post (this one) would be about the time I felt most lost, and the time I felt most happy.

I’d been slowly eaten by depression, up until the night of Tuesday, March 22. I was wandering much farther than I ever should have dared to wander. I wandered too far, and I got lost. My diary entries are filled with the things I wrote at a time that I was convinced I was nothing. I would lie on my bed and sob and write, because all I could do, then, was spread my tears and ink all over my diary. I spent hours soaking up my gutter. I hated life. In a particular entry, I wrote, again and again and again, “I am nothing. I am nothing. I am nothing.” Just that, for a whole page. I don’t know why I was so angry at myself. Every time I made a mistake, instead of letting it go and allowing myself to be human every once in a while, I rubbed it in and assured myself that because of this, because I hadn’t finished my homework or forgotten my stuff or not done my chores, I didn’t deserve anything. I was useless.

My mom’s outbursts didn’t help. Those two months, for some reason, she seemed particularly bitter. She seemed completely jaded to all of my insecurity and emptiness and sorrow. I doubt she really was this way. But it seemed so to me, at least, since my vision was blurred. I was watching rain through a stained-glass window.

I normally consider encouragement to help success. If I’m confident and others are confident in me, and are kind to me and encourage me, I usually do fairly well — or at least, I am content with my completed work. Because I tried. And I did it with a good attitude.

But during this phase of my life, I didn’t have a positive outlook on anything. I told myself that I should do well because I was nothing. If I didn’t do well, I told myself it was because I was such a useless piece of crap, in the way of everybody else.

This continued until one day, I thought, If I’m so useless, and get in the way of everyone else’s progress, I should just die.

I wanted to die.

I’d told myself I was nothing until I believed myself, and then I thought I should die.

Maybe the only thing that kept me from killing myself was my knowledge of the existence of hell.

I wasn’t sure, not 100%, that I would go to heaven when I died.

Would I go to hell if I committed suicide?

But I kept wanting to die. I wanted to commit suicide. But I couldn’t. Something, something deep deep inside of me — God — said, “No. No. No,” every time I said I was nothing.

You aren’t nothing. You aren’t nothing. You aren’t nothing.

I didn’t kill myself, obviously. But all I saw, everywhere I looked, was darkness.

Then came Spring Camp, on March 22. I went to that camp, what I got from my youth pastor’s first message was this:

When you tell yourself you’re nothing, you are telling Jesus that He died for no reason.

I was sitting on the floor as I listened. And right there on the floor, right in the middle of his lesson, right in the middle of all those High Schoolers and Junior Highers, right in front of God, I began to cry.

My youth pastor and God had just told me I was COMPLETELY wrong about myself.

And it was the most beautiful news I’d ever heard in my whole entire life.

I WAS NOT NOTHING!

The message ended, and my best friend and I went back to our room and I cried some more. Then I talked to my youth pastor, and he got our other pastor, and I kept crying.

I wasn’t crying because I was sad. For the first time in years, I cried because I was so, so, so, so so so so so so so SOOO relieved.

It was like I could finally breathe, finally see, finally hear. Finally LIVE.

I came home from that camp, and two days later, walked into my friend’s house. And she looked at me and she knew I was different. I was better. I was finally, finally healed. She told me that she and another friend of mine had gotten really worried about me. They were concerned about me. She said they’d been planning on literally sitting down with me and asking what on earth had happened to me. What on earth was wrong with me.

She said, “I saw you, just now, though, and I knew you were finally okay.”

I was happy. I was so, so happy. My friends, and my youth pastor, shared my happiness. They knew how much I’d changed.

My mom said she’d noticed I was sad, but she hadn’t known I was that sad before. “I wanted to talk to you,” she said, “but you were so busy pushing me away, I didn’t want to make it worse.”

I was so depressed I had scared my own family away from me.

I had been a plague.

I know that was no mere depression. “Depression” is an understatement, BIG time. That was a spiritual attack. That was Satanic. That was living death.

But once it ended, I was so happy, I was glowing. I watched a video my friend took of me after Spring Camp, and I was so different. I didn’t even LOOK like me. I looked happy. And from my experience until then, happy wasn’t something I’d have called myself. But now, I was certainly happy.

Actually, something I thought described how I felt really well was Psalm chapter 40. I found it on accident at Spring Camp, and I took it to heart. It’s become my signature chapter, I think, a chapter that means a LOT to me.

This is part of a passage from my diary, written on Monday, June 6. Around this time, I was writing A LOT. In my free time, I wrote in my diary.

“It’s like I can see. Not just happier. It’s honestly like I can SEE clearly. Like the very colors are brighter. […] All I can say is this–

“I have been saved.”

“It’s just like Psalm 40. God brought me up out of the darkness and the pit; He heard my cry, and He took my hand and pulled me close and breathed life into me.

“And I can SEE.”

Around that time, a quote popped into my head. I remembered something we’d read about, in a History book. It was some book by Albert Marrin (he’s my favorite History writer) and in the prologue, I believe, he’d said he’d found a postcard jammed in the cracks of a war memorial. On it was written a quote by Aeschylus. I loved that quote. I memorized it. I thought about it when I was saved by God from my depression. It was this:

“In our sleep, painful memories fall drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom, through the awful grace of God.”

I was relieved. Completely relieved. My arched back was straightened, the weight of depression removed from my weak, human shoulders.

I wrote this poem this summer. This summer, of course, was a time when I felt truly,openly happy. I was dang happy. This March, I was freed from the deep, deep depression that had finally reached its peak in late February and March. My proceeding spiritual high lasted from the very end of March till it began to recede in mid-August.

I was so, so, SO happy. I was content. Content with life. Content with everything. I was in love with life. Completely. I felt free, finally — it was such total relief that I felt like I could run and run and run and never be tired. It was like even my vision was sharper. The colors were brighter. I could literally see better. In fact, I was so relieved that I will base my next post on this topic, and will post quotes from my diary. But anyway, I wrote this at AWANA’s West Coast Honor Camp this summer. I paused and took that moment to write this poem. I hope you like it.

Here’s the story of a woman who was isolated for 12 years. She suffered from “bleeding,” or, in the modern term, her period. Her menstrual flow.

Having your period for 12 years straight would suck today, but back then in this woman’s time, your menstrual flow was, in summary, a curse. During your period, you and anything you touched was unclean; if you touched someone, they were unclean; you were sent off to a house with all the other grumpy women on their periods.

I don’t know how this poor lady gathered up the courage to get out in public in the first place. Luckily for her, nobody recognized her.

But it was probably worth it, touching Jesus and being healed.

What a faithful woman. She didn’t look for a big hug or a huge ceremony or even speech from Jesus. All she knew she needed was to merely touch the hassel of His robe, a tiny piece of His garment. She only wanted, only needed, that little part of Him, and she was healed.

Jesus knew when this miracle took place. He asked, “Who touched Me?” which can be a little odd to ask, considering the whole crowds of people pressing against Him – not only this woman. His disciples knew it, too – verse 31, “His disciples said to Him, ‘You see the crowd pressing against You, and You say, “Who touched Me?”’ (Mark 5:31, HCSB)”

Jesus didn’t ask the question for His own sake. After all, 1) Jesus knows everything, and 2) nobody but He and the woman knew of when she, in particular, touched Him.

I believe that part of why Jesus asked it was so the woman would have a chance to speak up, to share her faith and her testimony.

It wasn’t enough for the woman to merely be healed. She spoke up about it as well.

It’s the same with us.

We can merely touch the corner of Jesus’ robe and be healed thoroughly, miraculously, beautifully.

And once we’re healed, Jesus will know it, and He’ll say, “Who touched Me?” – so we share it, we tell of it, we tell of our healing to Jesus and to everyone else.

We have asked this question a lot: God used to perform miracles all the time, right? How come he just stopped?

This is a reasonable question. There is a long list of miracles recorded in the Bible – crazy stories of water turning to wine, kiddos (a.k.a. children) being healed and raised from the dead, flaming bushes that don’t burn. All sorts of miraculous happenings that can’t be explained naturally.

But He doesn’t do all those insane fantastic stunts anymore. We don’t see donkeys talk, these days.

Does this mean God’s given up on us?

Or does it mean God doesn’t exist and never did?

Of course it doesn’t.

Let’s examine the Israelites’ faith during the Exodus, led by Moses. God did some great stuff for those people. He had Moses part the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21-22), He rained bread down on them from heaven (Exodus 16:14), He brought water out from a rock (Exodus 17:6). And what did the Israelites do? They disobeyed God when he gave them manna from heaven (Exodus 16:27-28), they demanded water from Moses and tempted God to give them water.

Why? Because they didn’t trust God. Because they weren’t satisfied with what they had already.

Here God had plagued the Egyptians with ten terrible, terrible things to get them freed; here He’d parted a whole sea just for them to cross it quickly; He’d given them food and provided them subsistence and health and life, He’d given them freedom, but they weren’t satisfied. Why not some water, God? We just want a little water. We’re suffering SO MUCH, here! Jeez, water water water! Me me me me me me ME!I want water. I want food. I want to be free.

God gave them all of it. But they just wanted more.

Do you really think we’d be any different?

We have instant everything. Instant noodles, instant messaging, instant cake, instant movies, instant meals, practically instant friends. We make things take as little time as possible because we’re lazy.

God isn’t going to give us instant miracles.

There’s too much instantness already. If God just performed miracles, we’d lose faith fast and look for something else.

The Israelites had everything they could ever need from God, but they weren’t happy.

We live disgustingly luxurious lives in the present day. It takes faith to realize God’s existence. It doesn’t take faith to see miracles happen.

Or does it?

God does really amazing things a lot of the time. When we pay attention, we see supernatural things happen a lot, often answered prayers. But so very many people just try to explain it away. Coincidence. Natural occurrence. There’s a scientific explanation, or no explanation at all, behind everything. Ever stop and think that maybe not everything has happened by science or reason? Ever stop and think that maybe we’re here for a reason, to fulfill a purpose, to stir something deep, deep inside of us?

Doing things fast doesn’t satisfy us. It just makes us disgusted with ourselves, makes us want more so that we might somehow justify ourselves. But that never happens. We keep searching, digging, wanting, wanting, wanting, envying, indulging ourselves in things that don’t last. Things that aren’t worth all the consequence.

If God performed miracles – if we didn’t ignore it altogether, or explain it away, it would just weaken our faith and make us want more, like the Israelites, like humans.

Seeing what God does takes faith. Faith doesn’t come easy, like IM’ing or fast food. It takes an inward struggle, a lifelong and daily dedication. But it’s well worth the struggle to find a treasure that never, ever goes away.

Faith is seeing things that not everybody gets to see – seeing the unseen. Feeling those ancient miracles inside your heart, stopping and listening to God’s voice in your head, hearing the unheard. Touched by the Intangible. Seen by the Unseen. Heard by the Unheard.

If God still did “miracles,” our story would be just as tragic as that of Exodus.

We would be people who are given everything they could possible want and still refuse to believe.

That is our story. That is how tragic our lives have become. How utterly sad.

It’s time to let it go and step into God’s arms – those arms that are only felt by faith.